Learn About M.H. Abrams

Nonfiction Literature & Fiction Poetry

4.1/5 (23,810 ratings)

Born: July 22 1912

Died: 2020 04 20152015

Website: Go to Website

Influences: I.A. Richards

Meyer Howard Abrams is an American literary critic, known for works on Romanticism, in particular his book The Mirror and the Lamp. In a powerful contrast, Abrams shows that until the Romantics, literature was usually understood as a mirror, reflecting the real world, in some kind of mimesis; but for the Romantics, writing was more like a lamp: the light of the writer's inner soul spilled out to illuminate the world. Under Abrams' editorship, the Norton Anthology of English Literature became the standard text for undergraduate survey courses across the U.S. and a major trendsetter in literary canon formation.

Abrams was born in a Jewish family in Long Branch, New Jersey. The son of a house painter and the first in his family to go to college, he entered Harvard University as an undergraduate in 1930. He went into English because, he says, "there weren't jobs in any other profession, so I thought I might as well enjoy starving, instead of starving while doing something I didn't enjoy." After earning his baccalaureate in 1934, Abrams won a Henry fellowship to the University of Cambridge, where his tutor was I.A. Richards. He returned to Harvard for graduate school in 1935 and received his Masters' degree in 1937 and his PhD in 1940. During World War II, he served at the Psycho-Acoustics Laboratory at Harvard. He describes his work as solving the problem of voice communications in a noisy military environment by establishing military codes that are highly audible and inventing selection tests for personnel who had a superior ability to recognize sound in a noisy background. In 1945 Abrams became a professor at Cornell University. As of March 4th, 2008, he was Class of 1916 Professor of English Emeritus there.

Verify your account

Verifying...

We were not able to verify...

Number verified

sign in

reset password

M.H. Abrams

Nonfiction Literature & Fiction Poetry

M.H. Abrams

Nonfiction Literature & Fiction Poetry

Books from M.H. Abrams

The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Volume 1: The Middle Ages through the Restoration & the Eighteenth Century

M.H. Abrams

The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Volume 2: The Romantic Period through the Twentieth Century

M.H. Abrams

The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Vol. B: The Sixteenth Century & The Early Seventeenth Century

M.H. Abrams

A Glossary of Literary Terms

M.H. Abrams

The Mirror and the Lamp: Romantic Theory and the Critical Tradition

M.H. Abrams

The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Vol. D: The Romantic Period

M.H. Abrams

The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Vol. A: Middle Ages

M.H. Abrams

The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Vol. E: The Victorian Age

M.H. Abrams

The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Vol. C: The Restoration & the Eighteenth Century

M.H. Abrams

The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Vol. F: The Twentieth Century & After

M.H. Abrams

Natural Supernaturalism: Tradition and Revolution in Romantic Literature

M.H. Abrams

The Norton Anthology of World Literature, Volumes A, B, C: Beginnings to 1650

M.H. Abrams

English Romantic Poets: Modern Essays in Criticism

M.H. Abrams

The Fourth Dimension of a Poem: and Other Essays

M.H. Abrams

The Milk of Paradise: The Effect of Opium Visions on the Works of De Quincey, Crabbe, Francis Thompson, and Coleridge

M.H. Abrams

Doing Things with Texts: Essays in Criticism and Critical Theory

M.H. Abrams

The Correspondent Breeze: Essays on English Romanticism

M.H. Abrams

Wordsworth: a collection of critical essays

M.H. Abrams

Norton Anthology Of English Literature: Media Companion

M.H. Abrams

The Norton Anthology of English Literature with Jane Eyre

M.H. Abrams

The Norton Anthology of English Literature / Wuthering Heights

M.H. Abrams

Τι είναι μια ανθρωπιστική κριτική; (minima, #5)

M.H. Abrams

Teaching with the Norton Anthology of English Literature : A Guide for Instructors ( Sixth Ediition, Volumes 1 and 2 )

M.H. Abrams

El Romanticismo: Tradición y revolución

M.H. Abrams

The Norton Anthology of English Literature: In Two Volumes

M.H. Abrams

In search of literary theory,

M.H. Abrams

Literature and Belief: English Institute Essays 1957

M.H. Abrams

the Norton Anthology of English Literature 6th Sixth Edition, Vol. I

M.H. Abrams

Norton Anthology of English Literature, Course Guide

M.H. Abrams

The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Vols C, D & E

M.H. Abrams